Grace Jin Drexel hadn’t expected her father’s final message before his disappearance to be a call for prayer.
“He told me to pray for another pastor who had gone missing,” she said.
Hours later, her mother called to say she could no longer reach him.
Pastor Jin Mingri, founder of Beijing’s Zion Church, was among at least 30 Christians arrested last weekend across 10 Chinese cities in what activists call the country’s largest roundup of believers in decades.
The BBC reported that many fear it marks the start of a new offensive against China’s underground churches.
Authorities have intensified efforts in recent months to tighten control of unregistered congregations. In September, Beijing introduced new online rules allowing only licensed groups to hold virtual services. It’s a move critics say targets independent churches.
Pastor Gao Quanfu was detained in May, and several members of the Linfen Golden Lampstand Church were later sentenced on what rights groups describe as fabricated fraud charges.
The BBC obtained a detention notice stating Jin is being held in Beihai’s Number Two prison, accused of “illegal use of information networks.” Some arrested members have been released, but as of Thursday, most remain detained.
“This is just the beginning of a larger crackdown,” said Corey Jackson, founder of the Luke Alliance advocacy group.
Open Doors, another watchdog, said Zion’s size and visibility made it a likely target.
“Authorities are getting nervous about organized social entities they do not control,” a spokesperson said.
Zion’s pastor, Sean Long, now in the U.S., called the arrests a “systematic roundup” meant to “unroot Zion.” Quoting a Chinese idiom, he said: “Zion is the chicken. It’s to scare other Christians and house churches in China.”
A Chinese Embassy spokesperson insisted citizens enjoy religious freedom “in accordance with law,” while rejecting Western criticism as interference.
Jin’s journey from loyal student to outspoken pastor began after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, which shattered his faith in the state. He founded Zion in 2007 after rejecting state-sanctioned doctrine.
By 2018, when authorities ordered the church to install surveillance cameras, it had grown to thousands of members. After refusing, it was shut down, and Jin was barred from leaving China.
Even as Zion’s future is uncertain, Long remains defiant: “Persecution cannot destroy the church. History shows where there is repression, there’s revival.”
The State Department issued a statement in response to the arrests, calling for the release of the church leaders and accusing China of displaying “hostility towards Christians.”
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